4/30/2006

Quote of the Day

XXIX. Now for my Part, being fully assured, by the Reasons I have already given, that there is some Right common to all nations, which takes Place both in the Preparations and in the Course of War, I had many and weighty reasons inducing me to write a Treatise upon it. I observed throughout the Christian World a Licentiousness in regard to War, which even barbarous Nations ought to be ashamed of: a Running to Arms upon very frivolous or rather no Occasions; which being once taken up, there remained no longer any Reverence for Right, either Divine or Human, just as if from that Time Men were authorized and firmly resolved to commit all manner of Crimes without Restraint.

XXX. The Spectacle of which monstrous Barbarity worked many, and those in no wise bad Men, up into an Opinion, that a Christian, whose Duty consists principally in loving all Men without Exception, ought not at all to bear Arms; with whom seem to agree sometimes Johannes Ferus and our Countryman Erasmus, Men that were great Lovers of Peace both Eclesiatical and Civil; but, I suppose, they had the same View, as those have who in order to make Things that are crooked straight, usually bend them as much the other Way. But this very Endeavor of inclining too much to the opposite Extreme, is so far from doing Good, that it often does Hurt…

—Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Liberty Fund edition, Preliminary Discourses